An evidence-based blog on human energy potential by a group of self-exploration devotees informed largely by their own experiences and the effect of their experiences on individual and collective consciousness. How and why kundalini, neuroplasticity, nirvikalpa, distance healing, mindfulness, meditation, near-death and out-of-body experience, and other energy cultivation techniques occur and how they influence evolution, creativity, and DNA. The tie-in between human biology and enlightenment.

Friday, May 18, 2018

Nothing like starting the day by tackling a weighty subject such as the meaning of, or the purpose of, life. But that's the way it usually happens: kundalini drops the spark of an idea into my consciousness and I find myself trying to put meaningful words around that spark.

If I were to say that the purpose of life is to become more aware, would you say that's lowering the bar? Notice I don't say the purpose is enlightenment. That might be too difficult to defend as there's a lot of uncertainty as to what enlightenment actually is.

Awareness, on the other hand, is a simpler concept.

"In the normal state of awareness, our consciousness seems to be a small bubble in and around our head. When we look out, we see a universe of staggering proportions in which we are dwarfed into utter insignificance. In the mystical state, the position is reversed. The individual consciousness perceives itself as being a drop in an infinitely vast ocean of awareness, and the phenomenal universe becomes dwarfed into near insignificance. The transition from the normal to the mystical state has sometimes been likened to that of waking up from a dream. In a dream, we believe that what we are experiencing is ‘real.’ But when we wake up, we realize that the waking state is more ‘real’ than the dream state. Similar is the case when we go from the normal state to the mystical state."

So if we can expand that "small bubble in and around our head" to become more aware, rather than less aware at the end of life than we were at the beginning, does that not constitute a life whose purpose has been consummated. Can we say then: The purpose of life is to become more aware over the course of a lifetime.In fact, doesn't just thinking about awareness make us more aware, as this Google Ngram seems to propose:

Google Ngrams Track Word Usage Frequency

Notice how the usage frequency of 'awareness' dips around the the time of 9/11. Does that not bear witness to a mounting incidence of extremism which gathered momentum around that time — a time when civility and manners went down the drain, taking a backseat to alienation,wanton violence, ideological fanaticism, and, finally, the Dogs of War.

Individuals targeted other individuals simply because they wore turbans. A man or woman as a human bomb became commonplace.

Apologists ascribe these incidents to religious fervor, but more often the bombers are revealed to be unsophisticated youths manipulated for political purposes.

"One consequence of the materialistic view of science is that since we are extinguished at death, there is no incentive to limit our behavior according to any moral or ethical standard. The only reason left to live is to enjoy life as much as possible, as any actions taken in this life, whether good or bad, could have no consequences once we die."

When people get caught up in a fever of settling imagined scores and resentments, the small bubble gets even smaller. And that's what we mean by becoming less aware —a limited paradigm composed of more 'self' and less 'other.'

"We all have a set of beliefs about how reality works. The various faiths of mankind, and science too, each have their own general perspective on how Creation happened and continues to unfold. This perspective is called a paradigm.

"The structure of each person’s paradigm is a result of their upbringing, education, faith, and/or knowledge of science, combined with the experience of the world that they have throughout their lifetime. Each person’s paradigm determines what he or she believes to be possible, or not possible. Paradigms are very useful, even essential, as they give us a framework that we can use to function in the world in an effective manner.

"For the vast majority of people, their paradigm is generally taken as a given. In other words, it is accepted as true, without need of proof or validation. As a consequence, few people — scientists or otherwise — actually stop to seriously question the validity of their own particular paradigm. Most people also do not realize that their paradigm is based on assumptions that they are not even aware they are making.

"Each person has her or his own unique paradigm. Throughout life, we are constantly coming into contact with others who have a paradigm that is different from our own, to a more or less degree. Human nature being what it is, our usual response is to reject those paradigms that diverge too far from our own. This is also usually the case when we are presented with factual data that contradict our own paradigm."

Recent history is as rife with examples of persons becoming more aware through spiritual practices, as it is with persons with mental health issues or political motives believing mass murder, war, and acts of terror serve some greater purpose.Is there any justification for a school shooting? Does the school shooter leave this earth with greater or lesser awareness?What about the politician, the money lender, the star athlete, the inveterate gambler, the NFL fan, false guru, well-meaning gossip, the scientist whose inventions kill millions?How does one become more aware over a given lifetime?It's not a one-time, momentary cataclysm; it's a process open to anyone and everyone:

How do I know? I started at the bottom; that's how. I was an "outer-directed puppet" with "no inner aim or real will." Asleep for most of my life, yet harboring some spark that led to eventually becoming an "inner-directed, cosmically oriented man," when I look back over my trajectory, the distance between my beginning state and where I am now seems greater that the distance between Earth and the stars.What stage are you at?

Saturday, May 5, 2018

‘Woe to the downpressors They will eat the bread of sorrow Woe to the downpressors They will eat the bread of sad tomorrow’~ Guiltiness - Bob Marley

‘Rockets, moon shots Spend it on the have nots Money, we make it Fore we see it you take it'~ Inner City Blues - Marvin Gaye Words reveal ideas, truths and concepts through layered meaning and context, and this can be heard at its most powerful in musical lyrics. Certain musicians have sung powerful lyrics about life, love, and change and I contend that these people are reaching depths of emotion that, when manifested through words, engage with audiences in similar ways that some prophets in the past did.

I suggest that these musicians are following in the shamanic traditions of the past, with one foot in spirit world and one foot in the real. I believe that we are living in a new spiritual reality. Here the shamanic, devotional, and esoteric practices of the past have been transformed into contemporary artistic movements.

Revelation — the divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence.

Revelation is traditionally given orally. A prophet (who is, I suggest, a highly enlightened shaman) discloses a new and important spiritual insight or foretells the future in front of the people. People would usually rejoice, weep, or have some kind of an emotional reaction and then create followings around this person sometimes using imagery of the prophet as means to worship.

Concept: Sameer Patel

Design: Nazira Hanna

At the core is a connection between an individual who is orally transmitting words and an audience. Sometimes these words are sung, for example, it is is said that Mohammed sang the words he received from Gabriel and the audience who first received this words were enraptured. Sometimes the words are poetic for example the Indian epic The Mahabharata which also contains the Bhagavad Gita was originally an orally transmitted poem. I contend that prophets had the ability to fully control their voices, convey layered meanings, which helped people transcend the relative nature of reality to understand higher truths. These prophets understood that use of melody, rhyme, rhythm, and meter added layers to words that accentuated the meaning and understanding and, in certain cases, helped people achieve transcendental changes. On a subtle level, I believe that prophets of the past, especially in the West, channeled energy downwards from the crown, and, they may not have been born with these gifts, but realized them from a full and transcendent spiritual awakening.

This type of channel from the higher more cosmic chakras gave the prophet the ability to talk about spiritual insight and prophetic visions. Some mystical awakenings were truly creative. For example, take the 12th century mystical poet Rumi, especially after he was awakened by the wandering mystic Shams. When the words were transmitted in the fullest way, the people hearing them experienced ecstatic responses including emotional releases, shaking, and for a few, even awakenings.

Now contrast this with a few modern day singers — rappers and musicians. These people have the ability to use their voice and engage audiences en masse creating powerful emotional responses. These artists and musicians have a deeper connection with something greater that allows them to express music, lyrics, and words which resonate emotionally and spiritually with audiences. Using posters and merchandise, their fans build shrines in their houses to these artists; they attend their concerts when the artist is in their city. They may claim the artist’s music changed them or helped them feel better emotionally.

As in the introduction, I believe that some of these musicians are unknowingly akin to modern day shamans with one foot in ‘spiritual realms’ channeling truths to reality. They experience complex emotions, perhaps by delving into dark recesses. They are inspired by dance, mind altering substances, and their connections to their people, culture, and their origins.

Rather than organized religions codifying this oral tradition, it is the modern corporate and economic system that now takes and disseminates these words to the masses. It is my belief that these musicians, without the proper awareness or guidance — in a contemporary secular system where the spiritual model has been replaced by a commercial one — may suffer a number of destructive repercussions if they use their talent for purely personal ends.

Modern day artists need to understand the value their gifts and, if they choose to commoditize them, they need to be more attentive to their own energies and the people they choose to work with. Indeed, it is worth noting that in the past certain self-proclaimed prophets were not able to handle their gifts, one example exists in the apocryphal stories of Simon Magus, a man who had spiritual gifts and was happy to show them off, but not the strength of character to stay detached from his siddhis.

On the subtle, energetic level both the prophets of old and certain modern music artists have opened their throat chakras, sparking the ability to envelope words with power and meaning. Most of these musicians are not on the same level as the enlightened prophets of the past, however, these similarities exist for a reason: these musicians are spiritually connected people manifesting truths audiences want to hear. Unlike the prophets of the past, these modern artists drive their energy from the heart chakra.

The Heart-Based ModelThe modern Kundalini movement is based on a new model that has the heart and creativity at its center, rather than a model with an upwards or downwards energetic movement. Instead of rapturous stories about the love of God channeled from "above," these artists with their heart connections transmit stories about the love of others — humans, individually and collectively — and all the associated tumultuous emotions that this love brings out. Modern musicians and artists who are born with awakened throat and heart chakras are able to mesh their voices with emotional, layered, and meaningful words from their experiences that connects and resonates with others: some artists who've experienced heart-based Kundalini awakenings express their spiritual essence through art and creativity.I maintain that we have subconsciously moved our spiritual systems into everyday art forms and the industries that surround them. In the past, people worshiped gods and spirits; now teenagers worship rock stars by streaming the music, buying the merchandise, and attending concerts. What they are really doing is connecting with the spirit of the music and the words. As society secularizes love, we transform our prophets into profitable artists who sing about the love of a woman or a man rather than the love of god, but in essence we are still searching for that connection to the divine.

Friday, April 27, 2018

There can be a moment in a Kundalini awakening when the overall awareness of the developing powers that Kundalini induces — a deeper insight, a greater left-hand speed on the piano, even the power to not let minor irritations turn into full blown arguments — when everything gets blocked. The awakened energy seems to have lost contact with the things that we hold precious — writing a good book, doing something worthwhile in the village, even making love with the partner we love — and there’s a frightening sense of an explosive energy that’s going nowhere and has no outlet. This can lead to disorientation of the sense of space and time.

The Biblical saying about a camel passing through the eye of a needle (to enter heaven) comes to mind with this sensation of overload, too much energy being forced through too confined an opening. Interestingly, the tantric texts speak of a series of smaller, threadlike nadis within the spinal Susumna Nadi, the brahma and citrini nadis, as fine as ‘the thousandth part of the thickness of a hair’ where the Kundalini energy is at its purest and most intense. When a blockage arises here one feels immensely spaced out, possessing huge energy yet unmotivated, as if there’s the merest needle’s eye between the Heart Chakra and the Brow Chakra for the Kundalini to get through. In traditional wisdom the Visuddha, or Throat Chakra, is called the "Threshold." When it’s blocked, there’s a feeling that the world of the senses has become unreal.

This calls to mind the fact that our sense of place — our position here and now in space and time our is the thing that separates us from the All, from transcendent reality, separates us more than thought or emotion do. I find, personally, that my strongest memories (when the past is most present) are memories of places, rather than of events, or even people. It’s as if the feeling of the body in time and space, at a certain moment and at a certain place, is the closest that memory (and all thought is memory) can come to shared transcendence, and the direct experiencing of the energy continuum. Blake’s words in ‘The Mental Traveler’ are telling:

‘For the eye altering, alters all, The flat earth is rolled into a ball…’

The ‘flat earth’ is the here and now as it is given to us — what I perceive looking out of my window — and is closer to the reality hidden behind appearances than my mere mental knowledge that the earth is round and has a lot of people on it, none of whom are me. In ‘Milton’ Blake writes:

‘The Sky is an immortal tent built by the Sons Of Los (divine imagination) And every Space that a man views round his dwelling place Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount Of twenty five cubits in height, such space is his Universe: And on its verge the Sun rises and sets, the Clouds bow To meet the flat Earth and the Sea in such an ordered space: The starry heavens reach no further, but here bend and set On all sides, and the two Poles turn on their valves of gold; And if he move his dwelling place, his heavens also move Where’ ere he goes, and all his neighbourhood bewail his loss… …As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner As of a Globe rolling through Voidness, it is a delusion…’

This, clearly, is not scientific, but I think it expresses a truth about the borderline between sense experience and transcendence, and the way that the sense of separateness that Kundalini overcomes is rooted in time and space, and in every specific moment of space and time. Similarly the brahma and citrini nadis that are both ‘fine as the thousandth part of the thickness of a hair’ and where the Kundalini Energy is at its purest and most intense, are the threshold where Kundalini, as pure consciousness, consumes this or that thought before it arises.

Friday, April 20, 2018

Kundalini was first discovered by the ancients during religious or ceremonial practices — before science existed. It has retained its religious roots; it is still part of some religious practices. For example, meditation — an integral part of many religions — can induce kundalini safely and permanently.

Nevertheless, more and more people now acknowledge the awakened kundalini as science with its own anatomical, physiological, and embryological phenomena. Why? People have realized that kundalini is a biological process, not a belief system.

For example, if you’re a Buddhist, you can be converted to another belief system. You can change your mind and become a Christian or a Jew. You cannot be converted to kundalini any more than you can be converted to an orgasm or a heart attack. They are biological processes, not belief systems. You don’t “believe” in the physiological channels, chakras, nadis, or energy centers known to kundalini adepts. They are fact. Someday, science will acknowledge this, just as a growing number of people who’ve awakened kundalini have.

Moreover, because it’s a science, kundalini is not about bliss states, even though a kundalini awakening often induces behavioral states, not dissimilar to religious ecstasy. I believe this is due to the fact that kundalini opens up vistas of higher consciousness that most people never experience — states which are so breathtaking and so different from “normal” consciousness that people tend to believe they’ve been catapulted into a kind of wonderland or Oz.

Most initiates understand that kundalini opens new vistas of human cosmology, metaphysics, and higher consciousness and under its thrall they are tempted to describe their experience to friends, family, and even to strangers. I've spoken with many individuals who've attempted this, only to find that listeners turn a deaf ear. What they're not aware of — especially in the first rush of kundalini ecstasy — is their descriptions are usually incoherent. This is normal; everything seems to happen at once. Standard vocabulary is rarely up to the task of describing the kundalini phenomenon.

In these instances, however, not only does the individual lose credibility, the whole topic of kundalini tends to attract further scorn, skepticism, and ridicule. Kundalini doesn't need this; there are enough outsiders who already doubt its actuality. It's better to pause before blurting out. Sometimes it's better to say nothing — get your bearings, study a bit until you've had time to assimilate the overpowering effects of kundalini.

And that's where this book comes in. It allows both initiates and adepts to grasp the totality of kundalini experience. Although kundalini is too vast a topic for any one book to be hailed as definitive, Kundalini Musings (2018) both clarifies and demystifies kundalini, explaining in simple everyday language not only the more abstract metaphysical aspects of kundalini, but also how to awaken it permanently and how to live with it.

The metamorphosis kundalini imposes — whether immediate or gradual — can be difficult to accept and integrate into your life, making you easy prey to impulse, instability, or inertia. Sometimes, things go badly.

In my case, although I didn't plan it that way, sometime around 1965 I found myself on a solitary path, gradually intensifying my efforts to awaken it and marveling as serendipitous happenstance propelled me forward.

I was in my mid-twenties then. Within seven years I would upend my mostly conventional life, undergo a complete metamorphosis, culminating in a permanent kundalini awakening.

It's been over 40 years since that day. Now in my 81st year, I believe it's fitting to feature everything that kundalini has inspired me to accomplish and to experience in one book. That said, the process never ends so I'll continue to study the effects of kundalini on myself and on others. Kundalini Musings is a compendium of my first 50 years with an active kundalini. I'm sure the next 50 will be even richer.

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Although a modern scientific investigation of Kundalini activation is essential in our scientific age, I don’t think we should forget the value of the ancient science, set out in the Tantras, The Secret Of The Golden Flower, and hermetical texts, that first elucidated the Kundalini event. We should acknowledge the importance of the seer/scientists of Tradition, because their insights are often a help in orienting oneself during the crises of a Kundalini awakening,

This is particularly the case with the guidance offered by the doctrine of the chakras and the Great Elements. A lot of people undergoing an activation experience visual disturbance and digestive problems. The two functions, sight and digestion, are related. The Tantric system explains this by allotting to the third, belly chakra the element of Fire, the influx from transcendence of a fiery, purging and consuming force. Modern man is very visually oriented. The cortices of the brain that deal with eyesight are dominant. This perhaps explains how an awakening can become painful if we seek to force the energy upwards too quickly without dwelling in the ‘darkness visible’ and emotional vortex of the belly. This can lead to hallucination, an impulsive driving of what is essentially unconditioned consciousness into visual images, a forcing of the energy outwards into material manifestations of the pingala nadi.

The importance of the fourth chakra, the Heart Centre, is obvious, as the ‘place’ or ‘state’ or ‘gear change’ where human centrality is revealed (the higher chakras being, in some sense, more-than-human.) If the rising Kundalini bypasses this chakra, which can easily be the case, as this ‘place’ feels like a loss of identity, then the higher influxes can become deranged. It’s said that, at the moment of death, the life force gathers in the heart before exiting through the top of the head. I don’t know anything about this from personal experience, but I'm convinced that preparing oneself for death, a healthy experiencing of ending in everything and at every moment, takes place in the heart chakra.

As a general rule, a lot of the problems reported with Kundalini activations, are the result of unresolved, outwards directed, conditioning being carried upwards into the higher chakras, where it runs amok under the sway of the increasing energy.

The throat chakra is a case in point. In the traditional system this is said to be the ‘place’ or ‘state’ where space/time enters the material world out of transcendence. This is obviously unsettling, because to experience the place and time I’m in (sitting on a balcony in Thailand) as — not my ordinary aggregation of eyesight, touch, taste, sound and thought — but as intense and unconditioned energy can be disorienting. It’s like being here and being nowhere at the same time. Rational constructs about how time and space are perceived, or analyzed ‘scientifically’, aren’t much help either.

The sixth, Brow chakra is called the Command Chakra, and there’s a stability and certainty here (the certainty that Kundalini isn’t a malfunction or hallucination), except that, according to the ancient tradition, the Command is not mine, it lies beyond my will, and has been working all along, and all the way up from the base of the spine, without my clear perception of it. ‘It (or ‘She’, I feel the ancients are right in making Kundalini female) does you.’ This, again, is challenging, because it could be seen as a denial of one’s free will. I want to participate ethically in the world, and be a force for good of my own free will, but how can this be if my mental, indeed physical, make-up and destiny is being formed by something whose essence is outside me?

Again, an ancient tradition — the doctrine of prenatal destiny — can help here. We have chosen this time and this place to be this particular person in a former state of being. This is most definitely not reincarnation as it’s ordinarily understood.

There can surely be no transference of the personal ‘I’ from one lifetime to another. The personal ‘I’ dies just as the body dies and the senses die. What carries over into the future, and out of the past into the present, is energy, and impersonal patterns of energy, which have their own form of will and choice. There seems to me to be a far greater chance of freedom in this traditional teaching — impersonal though it is — than in the modern neo-Darwinian reduction of life and evolution to the blind working of genes under natural selection. The denial of free will in much of modern scientism is an issue that the vocal advocates of neo-Darwinism sidestep. The ancient doctrines face the issue of death and ending more honestly than the selfish gene.

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Here’s how kundalini, and by extension, sexual sublimation, works. At least, this is how it worked for me. How do I know? I observed the kundalini mechanism (its biological characteristics) in the laboratory of my body.

I’ll skip over my meditation experience — its techniques are explained on the Golden Flower Meditation website — and pick up where the meditation method leaves off. And that is with the sudden ability to detect an energy buildup in the lower belly region. I use the word “region” because the exact location is difficult to pinpoint. Others, who’ve succeeded with the meditation confirm the energy buildup event, but also report having difficulty pinpointing the exact location. No matter. Kundalini activity begins with the energy buildup — a result of the breathing exercises in Golden Flower Meditation (GFM). What is this energy comprised of?

The composition of this energy for both males and females is sexual in nature and substance. Semen and cervical fluids are distilled into psychic fuel, often described as an essence or an elixir.

Once the energy buildup is detected, you can observe the psychic fuel starting to climb the spine, using as yet unrecognized-by-medical-science channels along the spine (consult your favorite esoteric source for detailed channel information). This is the sexual sublimation phase, that is, the distillation and redirection of sexual energy — normally used for procreation — being diverted up the spine to the brain.

Once this psychic fuel reaches the brain, it’s like a coup d’etat. Acting as a command and communications epicenter, kundalini takes over certain biological and metabolic functions. Via the nervous system, kundalini sends feelers throughout the body for the purpose of inventory, diagnosing the status of cells, tissue, and organs — the complete anatomy, physiology, histology, and embryology.

Kundalini compares the information received from each and every part, system, and subsystem of the body with the master plan for your embodiment, the blueprint for your being that came into existence shortly before your conception. It then releases healing energy to those parts that need it. Some of this healing work is accomplished immediately; some takes a lot longer. The healing energy is also composed of sexual energy and is summoned, as needed, by kundalini from the lymphatic and the sexual apparatus.

After my activation, I watched as my brain received information from my body. How did this work? A particular node was touched, and like a switch being thrown, I felt a click in the brain. Immediately after the click, a corresponding body part received an influx of energy that either healed it or made it expand. Every event was part of kundalini’s effort to synchronize my actual body and being with the master blueprint. I say “effort” because kundalini is intelligent; it knows what it’s doing. It has a plan and carries it out. If it doesn’t accomplish all that it sets out to do, it’s either because:

The body is too far-gone, overtaken, most likely, by degenerative disease. If it’s a neural impairment, kundalini is usually able to heal it.

The kundalini awakening is not complete and permanent.

The activation method was involuntary — all the kundalini components were not “installed” correctly.

In permanent awakenings, when all the components are correctly installed, the command and communications epicenter not only has an inventory component, it is able to dispense and release life force healing energy, it increases consciousness over time, and it also includes a governor that controls the precise amount of energy to release in a given circumstance.

In temporary or involuntary cases, the governor is not always completely operational and therefore releases either too much or too little energy. Too much energy may lead to situations of pain, discomfort, or other suffering. No one likes to see a person in agony, unhappy that kundalini ever came into his or her life. At this stage, however, techniques to relieve those suffering from neural pain or discomfort are not readily available.

In most cases, kundalini gradually expands consciousness and fosters anatomical, somatic, and metabolic improvements. It is even capable of modifying an individual’s genetic profile and passing these beneficial mutations along to future generations through DNA.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

What is consciousness? Is there a universal intelligence? What is the meaning of life? These are crucial questions, but watching them debated on TV, YouTube, the Oxford Union, etc. can be disheartening, that is, when the debate doesn’t descend into farce. Richard Dawkins in the materialist corner chewing his Darwinian gum shield. Stephen Myers in the Intelligent Design (ID) corner spitting blood into the But-Who-Designed-the-Universe? bucket. Christopher Hitchens hitting Christians and Islamists below the belt with their far-fetched beliefs. Michael Behe’s corner men trying to stop his Irreducible Complexity eye from irreducibly closing up. Except for Hitchins, they’re all supposed to be scientists, but I get the feeling that true scientists, and seers, stay away from this kind of roadshow, entertaining though it is. Anyone who has experienced Kundalini will know that Kundalini is the way out of the impasse of Materialism vs. Intelligent Design. They’ll know it with a certainty that is both bodily and non-bodily.

What gets me about this very widespread debate — it seems to be all over the Internet — is that it never makes it out of the faith vs ‘logic’ dead end, or the atheism vs theism impasse. These people seem never to have heard of the Buddhist Doctrine of The Awakening, the Taoist and Tantric paths, or even the esoteric currents in Christianity and Islam, like alchemy and Sufism. The point is that these are all paths. Each of them is an inward course of action, that bypasses and leaves behind the question of faith and dogma. I have a lot of sympathy for the Intelligent Design advocates. They seem to have come up with a lot of good arguments —the coded nature of the DNA molecule, the immense statistical improbability of life arising out of inorganic matter anywhere in the universe. The fact that the forerunners of the current species all appeared with a paleontological simultaneity (a mere five million years!) in the so-called Cambrian explosion, without any fossil evidence having been found for the vast number of intervening steps between the primordial soup and the Cambrian explosion which Darwinian evolution assumes. None of this, however, proves that ‘God’ designed the universe, or even set it going on its evolutionary path and let life get on with it.

The most irritating thing about the ‘Four Horsemen’ of aggressive atheism and the Intelligent Design of St. John of Patmos is that they all claim to speak for science, whereas true scientists discover things, they don’t sit on stages slagging off ideas they don’t like.

One true and great scientist is Erwin Schrodinger, who not only was in at the beginning of quantum mechanics, but also thought deeply about the nature of consciousness. These quotes are from a wonderful series of lectures he gave on ‘Mind And Matter’ (the Tarner lectures, 1955): Schrodinger said: “The doctrine of identity (of self and other, subject and object) can claim that it is clinched by the empirical fact that consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular.’ And: “The reason why our sentient, thinking and percipient ego is met nowhere within our scientific world picture can easily be indicated in seven words: because it is itself that world picture.”

This is where an understanding of Kundalini is crucial. If one reads the reports of the many different types of Kundalini awakenings in books like Gopi Krishna’s Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy In Man, or JJ Semple’s The Biology Of Consciousness: Case Studies in Kundalini what stands out is evidence of the physical effect of an intelligent force. This is why there are so many accounts of extreme bodily ‘symptoms’ (they aren’t, in fact, ‘symptoms’ they are intelligence itself at work, the Intelligence that ID advocates can’t explain.) Kundalini adepts speak of burning heat at the base of the spine, pain at the base of the neck, pressure and movement in the neural cortex etc. These events (which is what they really are, events not symptoms) can frighten and overwhelm. They can seem to be nothing more than an unwelcome physical upheaval. It takes endurance and an inner steadiness to see, and to grow into the fact, that they are the Fundamental Intelligence at work, not as a God out beyond the body somewhere, to be believed in or not, but as a proof that even our nervous system, our blood system, and our bony structure are a manifestation of Mind. Having been through it, I have no problem with calling that Mind ‘Divine’. Doing so isn’t an act of faith.

Saturday, March 3, 2018

In October 2006 I traveled to Kingston, Jamaica to visit a "dance" in the Matthew’s Lane area. A dance is where a local DJ sound system plays on the streets to their community with homemade, huge speakers that bellow out music. Standing on the street I could feel the bass like I had never felt it before, a bone rattling heart pounding expression of unity and healing. Everyone from grandparents to little children comes together to move and sway to these legendary Jamaican low frequencies. As I entered the dance, I felt that I had spiritually come home, for this is where the art of DJing was born, before the Jamaican DJ Kool Herc brought his sound system to the South Bronx in the 1970's and before the global dance movement started rocking the clubs, Jamaica was rocking the Streets. As I stood in that dance shaking to the bass and watching a whole community come together, I felt I understood something about dance culture and my own journey towards Kundalini.

Six months before my trip to Jamaica, I had a full spontaneous Kundalini awakening. One of its many effects was the appearance of involuntary asanas that corrected a severe sciatic problem I’d had for years. At one point, this L5-S1 disc issue had me completely immobilized for over a month. I'd tried many different therapies, but nothing worked. However, after my awakening I was able to do two to three hours of spontaneous yoga every night and watched in amazement as my disc slowly moved back into place.

Design by Sameer Patel - painting by the Udaipur Arts Collective

When I first experienced spontaneous movements I had no idea what was happening to me or what I could do about it. The movements seemed to be a cross between spontaneous yoga and a Chinese based martial art. After much research I came across a school that practiced "spontaneous qi gong." This was not far removed from the martial art part of my movement so I began a correspondence with the Sifu, who explained to me that spontaneous qi gong is a 7,000 year old practice where the initiate surrenders to the chi, allowing it to move through him or her — unlike traditional qi gong where one tries to move the chi. Apparently, with this school of qi gong injuries and physiological issues will initially be remedied and then later the energy will move on to "inner" work. This was exactly what happened to me: my sciatica was healed by the spontaneous movement. She didn't understand how this came about because, in her school of thought, spontaneous qi gong required a Sifu to awaken the chi, however she recommended that I continue the practice and thus began a journey that would completely change my life.

DJing has been a major part of my life, first as a hobby and second as a profession. If one observes people dancing — something which I have spent many hours doing — one can begin to see that it works collectively, as if a primal force is moving through the floor uniting people. From the dancer’s perspective they move individually to the rhythm, however, from the DJ's perspective one observes a collectivity that moves and binds spontaneously to the beat — at moments experiencing joy and ecstasy.

One might say that these moments are brief experiences of unity, similar to the concept of "Tawhid" or oneness to the Sufi Whirling Dervish dancers, or even of "Samadhi" to the tantric yogic practitioners. To purveyors of dance music such as Bob Marley or Nas these experiences are called out in their lyrics — "One Love."

When I look back at my life, I can connect the dots that led me to a Kundalini awakening. One of the lines is my being part of a global dance movement and its link to shamanism. I have witnessed shamanic practices around the world, including music, spontaneous dance, and ecstatic states similar to modern dance culture. From the practice of "Santoria" in Cuba to watching "Candomble" in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, I have watched shamans play rhythmic patterns on the drums and people dance spontaneously. For example, in Brazil the shaman explained to me that every time he changed the rhythm the women dance differently because a different spirit entered them. At all times, they were in an ecstatic trance like state; sometimes their eyes rolled back and they fell to the floor writhing.

Most recently I saw something similar in the "Lila" in Morocco where Gnawa practitioners enter into ecstatic states of spontaneous dance for physical and psychological healing. As a DJ, I have seen similar patterns where I'd observe the crowd and, like a shaman, ‘feel’ what the next rhythm should be. Once I mixed in the new record, the beat would change and, as the shaman might see it, a new ‘spirit’ would enter the crowd and they would move differently. If I played Hip Hop at 80 BPM (beats per minute), there would be one dance, however, if I sped it up and changed the beat to 120 - 130 BPM House and Garage, there would be another type of dance. At all times, the crowd would be in various levels of trance like states, spontaneously dancing to the rhythm.

I can see now that the spontaneous movements that emerged after my Kundalini awakening are linked to the spontaneous movements of indigenous shamanic cultures and indeed to dance culture in general. What is spontaneous yoga or spontaneous qi gong but a dance where we allow the spirit to move through us, guide us, and heal us. Where is the Shaman in this case? In my case, and many others where Kundalini has been awakened spontaneously, we are our own shaman or DJ figure, conducting the rhythm that works for us. Our intuition is our internal rhythm that comes from a more organic and subtle sense than sound, but, there is a rhythm and if we can listen to it, we can guide ourselves.

Shamans from around the world claim that spontaneous ecstatic movement and dance can heal us and I have experienced this on the dance floor and through spontaneous yoga and qi gong. We all have access to spirit, whether we call it, chi, prana, ki, ruh or pneuma, and, we have systematic and subconscious ways of moving this energy to heal us, including movement. These processes are anthropologically embedded into our cultures in shamanic rituals. In modern times, I believe we are witnessing this on the dance floors around the world. Spontaneous movement drives the energy through our channels helping us to release blockages on the individual level and if done with the correct intention we can heal collectively and even environmentally — if you see the Earth as an energy system.

In my opinion, the modern global dance movement is contributing to the propensity of spontaneous Kundalini awakenings and other contemporary creative movements we are currently experiencing. Recently, I read accounts of full vs. partial kundalini awakenings where the former is a permanent and continuous process and the latter a one-off experience. If this is the case, perhaps there is such a thing as a micro-Kundalini awakening — a moment where one feels oneness. Multiply that by millions of people every week on club floors around the world, and perhaps this global dance culture should be recognized for its contribution towards the worldwide awakening of humanity's consciousness.

Those who come together on the weekends or special occasions to celebrate the dance are following the patterns of our ancestors. They subconsciously seek individual and collective healing whilst the DJ transmits the guiding beat like the Shaman before him.

May the dance continue or as a Jamaican MC might say 'Sound boy! Pull up that track!'

Saturday, February 24, 2018

If you haven't already signed up, there's still time to do so. The Kundalini Summit is an entirely on-demand, free-of-charge, five-day event, featuring 24 kundalini adepts, each one an expert in their own field.

The speakers address issues like:

How are bodily sensations that you can't interpret connected with Kundalini?

How does Kundalini work?

What should you do during a kundalini awakening?

Which kind of abilities (siddhis) accompany an active Kundalini and why can they become a trap?

How can you activate your creative and inexhaustible vitality.

How does Kundalini enable Samadhi without any special effort on your part?

How do chakras really work and how do you purify them?

How are Yoga and Kundalini connected and which asanas release blocks and reactivate the energy flow?

Why is Kundalini considered an “intelligent” energy?

And most important of all: What is the cosmic reason behind the surge in Kundalini awakenings?

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

On schedule, my 80th year timed out yesterday. Subjectively, I didn't feel any different: no signs of aging one day to the next, no added wrinkles, sudden loss of balance, or cognitive impairment. Objectively, no looks of concern in the eyes of the people I encountered. No one who knows me avoided me, no watchful eyes waiting for me to drop a glass or start drooling.

And yet, eighty years old (80) has such an ominous ring to it, makes a person feel that people are going to treat him like an invalid or a harebrain from now on, and he'll have to come up with stratagems and affectations to make people think he's a jolly old man to humor and laugh with.

And it probably used to be that way. Certainly, I'd never write about turning 30, 50, or even 70. But 80! That's old. How did he do it? people must wonder. I thought he was much younger...

In India To Meet Gopi Krishna – 1977

Don't worry; you don't have to change; I haven't. Still doing yoga, trampoline, the nitric acid dump, two mile walks, and long mornings of writing and meetings.

Do I look younger than 80? The only objective feedback I get comes in the checkout line at the Co-Op when the cashier doesn't automatically give me the senior discount; I have to request it...

iPhone Self-Portrait For An Upcoming Book – 2017

When people remark that I don't look 80, I have to debate for a moment: Should I tell them about kundalini?

Oh, here he goes again! It's all about kundalini. When have I heard him say that before? Yes, it's a claim I made...years ago. I can't hide it. It's on the back of my book in large letters: "Rejuvenates the body; retards the aging process." I didn't make it up. How do I know it's really kundalini? What do you think happens when an elixir composed of psychic fuel rises up the spine to both rejuvenate and create brain cells all day long?

Many years ago, Timothy Leary said: "The body is a chemical factory." He was right then and he's still right on. I'll leave it to you to test the process in the laboratory of your own body.

The interesting thing: There's no real How-To. Kundalini takes care of that. It tells you what to eat, what not to eat; it doesn't tolerate cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs. Points you in the right direction, helping you to make better decisions — people to avoid, habits to break, efforts to support, limits to stay within.

Thursday, February 8, 2018

Many ask about Spiritual Rebirth — what it is, its purpose, and why it's so widely talked about. The concept of Spiritual Rebirth existed before the time of Jesus Christ and is essentially linked to the solar cycle of life and death as the seasons progress in wheel-like fashion from Spring to Winter and back to Spring again. This transcendental cycle was the basis of many religions prior to Christianity and is echoed in the stories of Osiris, Tammuz, Dionysus and has, at its core, the dead and resurrected God. The concept of "renewal" is embedded in our subconscious. The idea of the old transforming itself into the new in a cycle of constant change is part of Universal Law.

The story of the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross is symbolic of the sacrifice of the physical Self, the Ego, the body and its rebirth and return to the Source, as well as God as the transformed Spirit.

Jesus Christ on the Cross

The rise in consciousness occurs when the veil of illusion is lifted. The True Self rises above the Ego. The length of time alive on this planet is the result of past conditioning as the Ego develops. Removing the veil of illusion requires the application of a spiritual practice for a number of years in order to purify the Ego and exalt out the True Self. The more negative karma you acquire over the years, the longer you need to work on yourself to eradicate that karma. A few examples of spiritual practices people use to clear their karma are transcendental meditation, ritual Magick, devotional prayer, healing crystals, etc.

This is what is meant by Spiritual Rebirth — Spi-Ritual — a ritual for the Spirit with the aim of being reborn, metaphorically speaking. Discarding the old Self through the use of a spiritual practice is the ritual that brings out the new Self. The new Self was there before the old, or current Self, was developed. It was there at birth and in our early childhood years when we saw the world through pure, innocent eyes. In time, the Ego developed to protect us from the dangers of the outside world. The process of Spiritual Rebirth is a process of remembering. Re-membering who we once were and who we in essence really are. Beings of Light and of Love.

The purpose of the Christ's crucifixion is to teach us the importance of Spiritual Rebirth. The symbology of Jesus on the cross of the Four Elements is meant to embed in our subconscious the purpose of sacrificing the physical Self, the Ego, the body, to be reborn and rise through the Four Elements back to the Source, or God. What binds us to the Ego is our interpretation of past events, which the Ego uses to predict future events. Through our teenage years we learn to associate the Self with the Ego as it is growing and shaping itself. And once we start associating our Self with the Ego, we never stop. The greatest con the Ego has ever pulled is making us believe that we are it.

This process of associating with the Ego makes us lose touch with the Now, which over time makes us lose touch with the Subtle Planes above the Physical Plane of Matter. This process is detrimental to our spirituality because it closes up our Mind's Eye. There are Five Subtle Planes above the Physical Plane, the Aetheric, Astral, Higher and Lower Mental, and the Spiritual Plane. As a result of losing touch with those higher planes, we lose touch with imagination, intuition, inspiration, creativity, and motivation — key components of Self which enable us to be truly happy in life and realize our full potential.

In order to activate those parts of the Self, we must think in terms of the past's opposite — the future — because we need to be excited about life in order to strive in life. The Mind's eye is the connecting link to the Divine. We access these higher, Divine Planes through the pineal gland, which in turn is connected to the pituitary gland and Sahasrara, or Crown Chakra. The Crown Chakra is the God-Head, the Source, the White Light, which filters downwards into our Chakras. But if we don’t stimulate the pineal gland and are too entrenched in the Ego, it calcifies and closes up, shutting the door to the higher Planes and Divine energy. The process of Spiritual Rebirth is also a process of re-activating and attuning the Mind's Eye and the pineal gland.

The Pineal Gland

You cannot think in terms of the future and the past at the same time if you are not in the Now. The Ego belongs to the past and therefore only associates with what it knows and has seen before. Its mode of functioning is limited by its scope. It's a bi-product of survival mechanisms we needed to evolve, but as we become more spiritual over time, we don't need it anymore and can learn to function on intuition alone. This is the case with Kundalini awakened individuals. Over time, the Ego burns away and its dominion over the personality recedes, while the character is exalted through the influx of the Light brought in by Kundalini. Kundalini's primary purpose is to attune consciousness to the Now and expand it over time. It functions on intuition or clairvoyance — a direct knowing of truth. The Higher Self of the Spirit is in the Now and lives in truth.

The Higher Self sees into the future and thereby excites the field of Pure Potentiality. Basically, anything is possible and attainable for human beings. But the Ego does not see this. It uses the file cabinet of past events to calculate future outcomes. Future outcomes are not based on future actuality, but on calculations related to past events. The Ego cannot see into the future, so it uses fear of the unknown to intimidate our consciousness and control us.

The Ego belongs to the process of Being, while the Now is only triggered by the process of Becoming. Ego uses the Light of the Moon while the Higher Self uses the Light of the Sun. As it is only a reflection of the Light of the Sun and not the Light itself, the Light of the Moon creates illusion. The light of the Sun is the Truth — objective and real. This is why Jesus called himself the Light, the Truth, and the Way. He is called the Son of man, the Sun, surrounded by 12 Apostles, symbolic of the 12 Zodiac encircling the Sun.

The Light of the Sun is the source of our Soul, our True Selves. It creates the Now and the the future. The Ego is an illusion and it belongs only to the past. It is a figment of our imagination, existing in the mind only, specific to each of us. We carry both within us, and must choose at any moment one of the two: the Ego or the Higher Self.

If you can understand this concept, you have the master key to living in the Now and will not need a spiritual practice to return to the Source because you are able to use Mental or Mind Yoga to disassociate with the past and the Ego. The past very simply does not exist. It did at one point when it was the Now, but the Now renews itself every second. You can choose the Now right here and right now, and experience the Pure Potential of life and completely remake yourself. The masters learn that dwelling on the past is a waste of time because you cannot change it. What has been recorded in the Universe through time and space was meant to be. People call this concept Destiny.

Believing in Destiny offers some release from the bondage of the material world and the stress and anxiety of trying to control things that are uncontrollable. If you believe in Destiny and learn to let go of the past, apply it correctly and continuously,you can live a truly happy, fulfilling life.

Fixating on the past and living in the Ego takes away the juice, the nectar of life. It robs you of the dopamine and serotonin chemicals in the brain that induce happiness. Because you are under mental stress, your brain produces adrenaline instead, which inhibits the secretion of dopamine and serotonin. The mind, body, and soul have to be in a state of peace in order to release these chemicals which lets us experience feelings of happiness.

When you take a drug like Ectasy or MDMA, you immediately connect to the Now and a flood of happy feelings and renewed imagination pours in. And most importantly, Unconditional Love. Marijuana as well as Cocaine do the same thing. Technically, all recreational drugs are used in order to rise above the clutches of the Ego and put the user in tune with the Now and the Pure Potential state. Now, I am not advocating the use of drugs in any way, but merely using them as an example of what some people do to attune to the Now. With proper mind techniques and the right understanding, you don't have to use drugs to accomplish this. The Now is available to you 24/7 once you are able to get in touch with it.

These terms such as, imagination, the Now, Pure Potential, Truth, Light of the Sun, are all connected and have at their source Unconditional Love. Love is the deepest and most powerful energy in existence. Love is pure Fire and Archetypal, an emotion we can all partake of and share; it powers everything beautiful. As it filters downwards, it never loses its quality, but changes form as it embodies the Four Elements, which work through our Chakras. All Archetypal ideas have at their core Unconditional Love. Imagination needs love, as does Truth, creativity, happiness, joy, vitality and all the other beautiful aspects and parts of life. Verily, it is true, "Love makes the world go round." And understanding how Love works and making it a part of your life gives you the necessary transformation needed to evolve spiritually — the very purpose of life.

Saturday, January 27, 2018

In spite of Gopi Krishna's focus on the evolutionary aspects of kundalini, many people ignore the fact kundalini is, first and foremost, an evolutionary mechanism.What does that mean exactly? Kundalini provides the energy needed to nourish nonstop neuroplastic activity in the brain, which, in turn, fosters cell growth and mutation upgrades.

"Billions of years ago, according to the theory of evolution, chemicals randomly organized themselves into a self-replicating molecule. This spark of life was the seed of every living thing we see today (as well as those we no longer see, like dinosaurs). That simplest life form, through the processes of mutation and natural selection, has been shaped into every living species on the planet."

We evolved from one-celled organisms into the current form we label homo sapiens. It took a long time, but the process was, and continues to be, ongoing and incessant. Thanks to its role in evolution, kundalini never takes a break.One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the acceptance of evolution is some people's belief that we have reached an end form, the last and ultimate configuration for our beings. Not so, we are a work in progress:

It is possible for the DNA of an organism to occasionally change, or mutate. A mutation changes the DNA of an organism in a way that affects its offspring, either immediately or several generations down the line.

The change brought about by a mutation is either beneficial, harmful or neutral. If the change is harmful, then it is unlikely that the offspring will survive to reproduce, so the mutation dies out and goes nowhere. If the change is beneficial, then it is likely that the offspring will do better than other offspring and so will reproduce more. Through reproduction, the beneficial mutation spreads. The process of culling bad mutations and spreading good mutations is called natural selection.

As mutations occur and spread over long periods of time, they cause new species to form. Over the course of many millions of years, the processes of mutation and natural selection have created every species of life that we see in the world today, from the simplest bacteria to humans and everything in between.

Energy is needed to drive this process forward. Over the eons, as mutations occurred, there had to be an energetic outlay to transform each previous iteration of our species into new, improved species.

Where did this energy come from? It came from the same source it still comes from — part of our sexual energy is used for procreation and part for evolutionary purposes. There is, as Gopi Krishna stated, an Evolutionary Impulse that guides and determines how this energy is to be used.

Creating the energy for the regeneration process begins at the cell level:

"An enzyme is a protein that speeds up a particular chemical reaction. For example, one of the 1,000 enzymes in an E. coli's DNA might know how to break a maltose molecule (a simple sugar) into its two glucose molecules. That is all that that particular enzyme can do, but that action is important when an E. coli is eating maltose. Once the maltose is broken into glucose, other enzymes act on the glucose molecules to turn them into energy for the cell to use."

It's a complex and intelligent biological process. There's another aspect of this process that's even more problematic for most people — consciousness. How and where does it fit into evolution? If there's an impulse there must be a consciousness that drives it.

Science is trying — without success for the moment — to find an explanation for consciousness. That's because scientists are looking from the outside-in, trying to locate consciousness on the periodic table as if it was a molecule.

"The argument unfolds as follows: physicists have no problem accepting that certain fundamental aspects of reality – such as space, mass, or electrical charge – just do exist. They can’t be explained as being the result of anything else. Explanations have to stop somewhere. The panpsychist hunch is that consciousness could be like that, too – and that if it is, there is no particular reason to assume that it only occurs in certain kinds of matter."~ "Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness?" - Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian

So what's with the inside-out approach?

"The first reality we come across is consciousness. The world comes later. We know first ourselves and then the world. So the wiser course is first to understand the knower. What modern thinkers have done is to ignore or bypass the knower, forgetting that it is the knower that is doing it."~ The Awakening of Kundalini—Gopi Krishna

The "unified field of consciousness from the perspective of neuroscience" compares it to information stored in the cloud as opposed to information stored locally:

"Pim van Lommels take on the unified field of consciousness centres around the concepts of non-locality and interconnectedness:“'The mind seems to contain everything at once in a timeless and placeless interconnectedness. The information is not encoded in a medium but is stored non-locally as wave functions in nonlocal space, which also means that all information is always and everywhere immediately available.' (van Lommel, p. 224, 244) The implications of this hypothesis challenge dramatically the perception of individual consciousness as something limited and folded upon itself.“'In this new approach, complete and endless consciousness with retrievable memories has its origins in a nonlocal space in the form of indestructible and not directly observable wave functions. These wave functions, which store all aspects of consciousness in the form of information, are always present in and around the body."'The brain and the body merely function as a relay station receiving part of the overall consciousness and part of our memories in our waking consciousness in the form of measurable and constantly changing electromagnetic fields.In this view, brain function can be seen as a transceiver; the brain does not produce but rather facilitates consciousness.'” (van Lommel, p. 265)

So, if these notions are to be taken seriously — as is more and more the case — then it is clear that both evolution and biology are expressions of a consciousness that is more extensive than present scientific theory supposes. It is consciousness that provides the energy for continued evolution as well as the impulse to continue to evolve.

Gopi Krishna hit the nail on the head when he coined the term, evolutionary impulse:

"The aim of the evolutionary impulse that is active in the race is to mold the human brain and nervous system to a state of perception where the invisible world of intelligent cosmic forces can be cognizable to every human being."

Kundalini Related Links

That Was Zen; This is Tao

Vivek Govekar is a kundalini adept and an occasional contributor to The Kundalini Consortium. His YouTube Podcast That Was Zen; This is Tao is a collection of his experiences and thoughts: "I am going through a kundalini awakening process that started seven years ago. In this video podcast, I express my thoughts on several subjects of interest related to the kundalini awakening process. This will be based on my own experiences over the past few years."

Mention Us On Twitter

Subscribe To The Kundalini Consortium

JJ Semple On Kundalini

Your browser does not support the audio element.
JJ Semple explains his practice of the meditation with The Secret of the Golden Flower and how it ultimately led to his Kundalini awakening, documented in this book, Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time